BE: Clean House, even if you live with “The Messies”, Part 1

Do you live with “The Messies”??? You know who they are…they are the people in your house that as soon as they walk through the house, one item of their clothing is dropped in every room in the house. They are the ones who don’t think to put away what they took out…no, everything must stay OUT at all times, so I don’t forget I have such and such. And, they are also the person that can waste some serious time looking for gloves, shoes, purse, wallet, keys, etc. because, with everything out, you can’t find anything!! Seriously, every house has at least one “messy” in it. And, of course, it usually has one person that gets driven crazy by the mess &/or the “messie!”

***Just a note…the pictures in this blog ARE NOT MINE…not saying I’ve never had a messy house, but I certainly am not sharing them with the world!! 🙂

I think someone has too many toys….

This series of articles on dealing with “The Messies” is intended to:

1. give you practical tips on living with them

2. learn how you can train The Messies (if they are a creative right-brained person…remember, they can’t do it just like you!)

3. help you mutually agree to corral their items into a live-able situation for everyone in the home

4. learn how to build a team with the family. You are all in this together…become a team and take back your home, your life & your peace of mind!

how many cups can you count in this pic? just plain scary!

Let’s start with the kids – do they think you are their “personal pick-up machine”?? Begin early, training them that it takes a team to keep your house running well. It is too much work for just one person! Read on for some great tips…

PRACTICAL TIPS ON LIVING WITH MESSY KIDS:

Idea #1

Every night, before we go to bed, everyone (including my husband and myself) picks a room and cleans it. No calling someone in to pick up their things. You pick the room, you clean the mess. Since there are four of us, we pick the four major rooms: livingroom, kitchen, bathrooms, dinette. If they have to pick up someone elses mess, it makes them more conscious of making their own. If someone has an exceptionally big mess in a room, I choose that room for them to clean. This way they see what they’re doing. The big plus is we wake up to a clean house. The room is thoroughly cleaned except for vacuuming, which is done after school. If you have more people than rooms, the oldest can teem up with the youngest, and on down (or up) the line. If there are fights over who gets what room, you pick, rotating each night, or week, or whatever. Yes, we’re tired at night and want to go to bed, but that makes us more aware of cleaning up after ourselves.

Idea #2

When the kids were younger we had a nickle box. When I cleaned a room, everything went into the nickle box. If they wanted it back, they paid a nickle for each item. What wasn’t claimed after a period of time went to Goodwill.

Idea #3

One thing I did do when we had the problem of cleaning off the table was every now and then (not every meal) slip a dollar bill under a random plate. Whoever cleaned off the table after a meal found it. I had to find it the first few times, but everyone helped after a while, hoping to find the bill.

Idea #4

Daily Chore Rewards

Receive daily emails with chore rewards for your children! Parents set the chores in three areas: Hygiene, Academic and Household/Yard Chores – when the children finish the assignments, they receive the rewards. – Go to About.com/Homeschooling Guide

Here is an example of what your child will get as a reward for completing their household chores…

Why should I teach my child how to clean up after themselves???

I found this interesting little tidbit:

A preliminary study of kindergarten and first graders found a correlation between early reading skills and household order in the homes with mothers whose reading skills were deemed to be above average. Children in these homes – not necessarily homes that could pass a white glove test or whose floors you could eat off – but those with less chaos and more order, had more expressive vocabularies, more phonics skills and performed better on the Woodcock Reading Mastery test.

Keep coming back, in the days to come we will have lots more practical tips and stories from a “Recovering Messie” and someone who is living with a few little messies of her own.

Click the link to “Follow this blog” and you will be notified of the next installment of “Living with the Messies!!”

God bless, Kristen

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What if the person you live with thinks that messy is normal, in order to make the house look “lived in”. What if, when you try and clean up you are ridiculed because you moved some ‘precious’ item out of its place? For example, she will often set things in the kitchen (or hallway) in a cardboard box, and think this is okay as a long-term solution. Strategies only work when both parents want the place clean.

Dear Anonymous,I wholeheartedly agree…when someone doesn’t see the need to change, it is quite an uphill battle. One that I battled with, with my Mr. Messy. He began seeing that the time he was spending looking for car keys, or the embarrassment of the messy garage was not something he wanted to continue doing for the long haul. Though he is not a “naturally” organized person, he did learn some simple strategies that has made our home a much more calm place…but, just so you know, it did take awhile and I had to learn grace and patience in the process. 🙂 Don’t give up!